


Whumptober 2019

by MagicalSpaceDragon



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-11-15 08:50:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20863520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicalSpaceDragon/pseuds/MagicalSpaceDragon
Summary: Challenging myself to actually get all the way through a prompt list, and what better list to try it with than one full of angst and suffering? ;3c





	1. Shaky Hands - Drift

**Author's Note:**

> [swings in with the barely-edited drabble I wrote last night immediately before passing out] off to a great start I see
> 
> (also please note that warnings may change depending on the kind of mood I get into on some of these prompts;; I'll put any necessary warnings on individual chapters so y'all can skip at your own discretion)

Drift doesn't realize he's shaking until one of Ratchet's hands covers his own.

"What if I hate him?" he asks quietly. Ratchet sighs and sits down across from him, optics patiently urging him to go on. "What if I can't forgive him? What if I see him and I just get _angry_ and I do something I'll regret even after—" _All he's done for me,_ he chokes on.

Ratchet squeezes his hands comfortingly. "You can think someone's an aft and still care about them, you know."

"This goes a little beyond being an aft, Ratchet." He's not sure if he's laughing. "You said so yourself."

Ratchet shrugs, unrepentant. "I've had worse words for Optimus over the years. Rodimus… He's trying, at least, far as I can tell. You can work with that."

He has half a mind to tell Ratchet to stop having faith in him already, but that seems like it'd just wind up replacing the stress with bickering. He doesn't need that right now. Later, he will, but for now he leans forward across the distance—awkwardly, a little uncomfortable, leaving himself vulnerable—and rests his forehead against Ratchet's shoulder. "I don't know what I'm going to say to him."

"You can practice on me," Ratchet suggests gamely.

Drift snorts at the thought of Ratchet trying to mimic Rodimus, the flippancy and intensity with which he handles anything serious. Maybe he winces a little, too. "You don't need to do that."

"Open invitation," Ratchet assures him. With his face hidden, Drift doesn't hold back his smile.


	2. Explosion - Hot Rod

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fINALLY i can write again, FUCK, okay
> 
> this chapter's not a standalone, so we'll see how the story develops as i come back to it over the month...

Hot Rod hits the ground hard. Audials ringing, optics seared to uselessness with the afterimage, gyros scrambled and frantically trying to recalibrate.

"Oops," says a cheerful voice behind him.

At least three _other_ voices explode into angry yelling all at once. Hot Rod can't distinguish what any of them are saying, but none of them are familiar, and none of them seem to be directed at him, so he just keeps an audial tuned toward the argument while he tries to reorient himself.

His gyros come back to him first, thankfully. He's flat on his chest, seemingly in one piece, hands instinctively cushioning his head from—loud noise, bright light, thrown by a shockwave—an explosion or something? He can't remember what he was doing just now.

He resets his optics once, twice—the third time it actually works and they come on, using _way_ more power than they should be. He dials them down quickly.

The floor—it's smooth enough that it has to be a floor, roads don't come this nice—is an intact, light-colored material. It looks _clean._ He runs his fingers over it to check, and doesn't even come up with a layer of dust. He glances up next—there's a wall not far from where he's lying, of the same material as the floor, and it looks clean too. And, he notices belatedly, the place is _well-lit._ That settles it, he's never been in a building this nice in his _life._

He tries to get to his knees and nearly clatters back to the floor. Moving doesn't _hurt,_ exactly, but it's like he's not plugged all the way in to his own frame and it can only approximate what he tells it to do. He manages to sit up despite the disorientation, making a note to get down to Hackjob's clinic if it doesn't clear up on its own, and maybe even if it does.

He looks around cautiously. Lotta tables. Lotta shelves. Lotta doohickeys and machinery he can't identify—hasn't even seen anything like them sorting through scrap before.

Lotta guns too, he realizes with a chill. Nice ones. _New_ ones.

"Roddy?" an unfamiliar voice asks from way too close. His head snaps around and he takes in the stranger crouching next to him, a white mech with bright blue, well-fueled optics, no rust around the edges, and—he counts—three swords, sheathed but very, _very_ noticeable. "You okay there?"

Hot Rod opens his mouth to respond, but then the mech shifts and he catches sight of the badge sitting big and red and proud right there on his chest.

He whirls around to get his optics on the rest of the room. Four more, still arguing, body language like they're close to violence. A few with visible integrated guns. _All_ wearing the Autobot badge.

He's in an enclosed space with a bunch of armed Senate goons.

He _runs._


	3. Delirium - Rodimus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first of all, i never promised id do these in any reasonable amount of time
> 
> second of all, the only piece of transformers media ive successfully consumed start to finish is the 1986 movie and you BET i'm in a disproportionate amount of love with its everything and you BET i am freestyling like there's no tomorrow

"What do you think, Matrix-Bearer?" one voice that sounds like a thousand asks.

Rodimus shades his optics and looks for the source. "The Matrix is broken," his mouth says, instead of _who are you talking to_ or _what do I think of what._

In the silence, he gets the distinct impression of the voice turning and looking at him. He can't _see,_ he reminds himself, it's too _bright/dark_ and his visual feed is spitting out pure _white/black._ Like rounding a planet in orbit and emerging into the burning shadow of a star.

He does not burn.

He doesn't shake the feeling of being watched, either.

"Indeed it is," the voice says, now sounding like hundreds. Not diminished, but diverting less processing power to the conversation. He'd feel offended if he didn't nearly stumble under the relief of having some of its gaze off the back of his neck. "How fortuitous."

"Is it?" he asks, turning around and looking for even a tiny sliver of _darkness/light_ to take refuge in. It's dangerous to be out in the open.

"Of course," the voice says warmly. "You are free to decide your own fate, are you not? No corrupt Prime leading you back into war. No divine wisdom but that which you steal with your own hands."

He turns in a complete circle and the _light/darkness_ doesn't waver. His optics are useless, then. He offlines them and _listens._

It's silent. It's waiting for him to answer.

"Lot of mechs don't see it that way," he hazards, conversationally.

A dozen voices chuckle, and the rest say, "But you are not them, are you?"

Ah. This old trick.

"Guess I'm not," he allows, idly spinning on his heel to face roughly where the sound seems to be coming from. "So what? Not like I'm anything special."

"Oh, but you _are,"_ it says, deep and rich enough to give him the edge of a headache. He turns a few degrees counterclockwise and starts walking. His footsteps echo, metal on metal, hollow and distant like the surface under his feet is the only thing below him for miles. "You always have been."

He's braced for the words but they still manage to slip past his armor and magnetize themselves to his spark, make some part of him want to wrap itself around this thing's finger just to hear it call him _something special_ again. He forces himself to laugh incredulously. He really is dangerously easy to read, isn't he? "You think?"

"I _know,"_ it purrs, narrowing down from hundreds to tens of voices in a way that sends a tingling almost-fear up his spinal strut. He's not sure why he decided it was a good idea to walk _toward_ it, but now he can't seem to make his feet stop. "You are fire where others are fuel. You consume where others are consumed."

When his hand flies out to the side, he finds what feels like a wall, and his fingers sink into a gap between unwelded sheets of metal. He locks the joints in his arm and lets his momentum yank his shoulder and force his frame to still.

"What are you?" he asks. The wall is cold enough to freeze the fuel in his lines or hot enough to blister his paint. He doesn't dare online his optics to check which, just tightens his hold and ignores the urgent need to _keep moving._

There's no answer, and the back of his neck prickles. He tilts his head, dialing the sensitivity on his audials as high as it'll go. Heavy-duty machinery echoes in the distance, below him and around him and above him. Nothing specific he can make out. Maybe a smelter. He bares his teeth at the thought without really knowing why—

_Back of the neck._

He claps his free hand over the back of his neck. There's nothing there. The plating feels as smooth and undisturbed as it always does. He snarls anyway. _"Don't touch me."_

The prickling stops.

He grips the wall even tighter and it gives under the strain, leaving finger-shaped dents. _"What are you?"_

A single voice laughs.


End file.
